Video Games
by Pulpo Fiction
Summary: Lance and Kristen play video games, and Lance discovers that old habits die hard. One-shot.


**A/N: A one-shot. Lance as veteran is a concept I felt like expanding on, and this is what I came up with at 2 AM in the morning.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own SBT.**

Old habits died hard.

Kristen's den was warm and cozy, with a plump, squishy leather couch and a dark orange shag carpet. The walls were covered in old, cork-like wood panels, and the massive TV and Xbox seemed incongruous with the well-used, dated furniture. She was cross-legged on the ottoman, a bowl of popcorn to her left, a bottle of pastel-colored vitamin water to her right. Her expression was lined with concentration, shiny hair pressed close to her face by the bulky black headset.

Lance was on the carpet, leaning against the couch, an open bag of baby carrots slumped on his stomach and a bowl of something strange and delicious called 'hummus'. He was enjoying himself. Video games were like the ancient systems in the academy archive – immersive, simple, and totally useless for tactical and strategic training. He munched on a baby carrot as the screen loaded and Kristen's foot tapped nervously against the leather ottoman. They were playing a campaign today; Kristen having deemed his skills sufficiently advanced to play against real people instead of the computer. He wondered idly what she would think of his skills if she ever saw the inside of a Manus.

"Hey everybody, this is Lance. He's playing on the team, it's his first time," said, Kristen toggling to the list of teammates, and Lance cast a side-eyed glance towards the names of his prospective teammates. _xXGothicNinjetteXx, fattyboyblunt, bloodknight0712, IllinoisJones_ - What the fuck kind of mission names were those?

"H - " he started, but his headset exploded with chatter.

"I don't want any bitch-ass noobs on the team!"

"Heh heh heh, a little campaign virgin. It always hurts the first time, dude."

"Wait, are you Phant0mNinja? Kristin, is he Phant0mNinja?"

"Aight, bruh, as long as you can shoot."

"Aren't you that guy that beat up Jason at the Scary Mary party or something? _Fuuuuck_, man."

"Hey, assholes, shut up or I'll make you shut up," Kristen drawled into the headset, settling into the couch and toggling back to the main screen, which had the campaign directive written across it in big white letters. Lance barely gave it a second thought - it was a simple war game exercise; take out the other teams and retrieve the object at the end of the map within a specified time frame. He was more concerned about _playadestroya_ or whoever because playing war games with amateurs was never fun. Playing war games with seasoned veterans was even worse because they all had egos. Basically, it was just… never fun.

Kristen nudged Lance and he watched the timer on the screen flash and begin to count down.

"Okay, everybody ready? Start in three…two… one…"

The campaign directive disappeared and the map was clear. Instinctively his fingers played the controls and his brightly colored dot, bright blue next to his teammates' white dots, broke apart from the group. The players' characters were lumped together in some kind of hangar with three darkened exit tunnels. He tuned out the kitchen jokes - which he didn't really get, but Kristen seemed to be good-naturedly annoyed by them – and briefly toggled between perspectives, choosing third-person and slowly turning the joystick with his thumb to survey the surroundings. He felt a familiar sense of discipline coming back to him, a sense of responsibility; of cunning and cold bloodthirst… he wasn't Phant0mNinja. He was Corporal Lance of Fireteam Five, Manus Corps, Queen's Brigade!

His training snapped back into place.

"All units report!" he barked, narrowing his eyes, "we move on my command. Begin. Delta one!"

"Kris, the fuck is he talking about?" came a voice through the headset, slightly crackly. It appeared to be fattyboyblunt. The white dots began to disperse, moving slowly across the map inset on the screen.

Kristen fitted Lance with a look from her spot on the couch.

"I don't know, he's weird," she said, shrugging, but his training had gripped him like a fever.

"Hey, I said move on my command! Do you _want_ to get shot? Delta two, _report_," he growled into the headset, as his character rapidly became the only figure standing in the empty hangar.

"Yo, I just KO'd a guy from some other team, tell your boy to shut up," said a different, female voice, this time IllinoisJones.

"He's not my boy. Lance, shut up," Kristen sniped, throwing popcorn at his head. He scowled and put his controller down, watching as her character stalked down an empty hallway, switching between weapons. She chose what looked like some kind of plasma sword and rounded a corner. They heard a loud report and her character dropped to the ground in a splatter of blood, stats crawling down the quickly fading screen. Kristen swore under her breath and tossed the controller aside.

"Fuck, I'm out."

"DIE, FUCKER! DIE! SUCK MY D – oh, shit, me too," said IllinoisJones, and Lance could only roll his eyes as his fingers hit the controls. He crossed the hangar and went down a tunnel to the next hangar, where Illinois Jones had made her last stand, and spotted movement somewhere… behind a plane of some kind… someone from a different team. Was it possible to climb onto the plane itself? No. Damn useless programming. The next best spot was up a staircase to some balcony ledge thing overlooking the hangar. He switched to a vicious-looking long-range rifle – ridiculously impractical – and waited, tuning out the chatter… The person from the other team was making their way to the tunnel he had just come from, and they were right… there… he fired and smirked as the little white number next to Phant0mNinja flashed to '1'.

"Nice work," said Kristen, slouched on the couch with her arms crossed.

"Your team should listen to me," he said, and found another target; within seconds, he had dropped them with two shots.

"Hey, don't tell us how to fuckin' play," yelled fattyboyblunt.

"You're can't play if you're dead in two minutes," he yelled back. Kristen's teammates did not take this very well and they offered him several explicit suggestions as to what he and his mother could do for them, none of which he found appealing in the slightest. Kristen put her foot firmly against his shoulder and pushed. He tilted sideways and brushed her off with an impatient hand.

"I'll take all you jerks on at once," he snorted; "Kristen, get us out of the war g – campaign."

She shrugged and stretched for the controller, toggling back through the game to the customized campaign screen.

"Hey, we're all dead anyway, why not?" she murmured, an amused smile tweaking her lips; "Also, p.s., you're fucking crazy."

Lance made a face at her and she pushed him with her foot again.

Someone hissed angrily into their headset: "Kris, if this bitch dies, he's getting kicked off the campaign."

Lance sat up straight and rolled his shoulders. He put the controller on the carpet and cracked his upper back, hands intertwined behind him. He twisted around towards Kristen and reached for the hairband on her wrist; she let him pull it off and he gathered his hair away from his face in a loose, spiky tail.

"Fine," he said, "but if I win, you're all following _my_ orders."

The customized campaign directive flashed onto the screen. One against seven. The countdown flashed as well: three, two, one…

Fifteen minutes later, Lance was sprawled on the couch, one leg on the ottoman, the other dangling over the couch's arm, one elbow propped up on a pillow. Kristen was curled up on the other arm, her legs drawn up, watching Lance intently.

"All units, report. Move on my command. Begin. Delta one," he said happily, through a mouthful of baby carrot.

"Delta two," Kristen said, smirking. She had been the last one killed, and there'd been a rather tense few seconds when she'd almost taken Lance out... but a volley of popcorn to the face had proved sufficiently distracting.

"Delta three… " sighed fattyboyblunt, and the rest of the team followed suit.

"Delta four… delta five… delta six… delta seven…delta eight…"

"Odd numbers lead, even cover. Fire _only_ from protected positions. One pair each down the tunnels. Move out," he ordered, watching in almost nostalgic satisfaction as the white dots began to move in an orderly fashion down the tunnels; "third moon rises for the Manus Corps."

Oops. He hadn't said that in months. They had no idea what it meant, even though any Galalunan cadet worth their salt could fill in the rest: _and it never sets!_ The headset crackled to life again with catcalling and snarky jeers about other things that risebut the team swept the field in a way that would have made General Terax himself proud.

**A/N: Yup, that's pretty much it.**


End file.
